Natural Language Support

BOUT++ uses GNU gettext. to provide translations of output strings. Configuration is described in Natural Language Support and running in Natural language support. Currently only fr, zh_TW, and zh_CN have been added, but it is quite easy to add more. See locale/README.md or below.

Marking strings for translation

In the code strings are wrapped with _() e.g. "hello world" becomes _("hello world"). Find a string you want to replace (which can include formatting like %d), surround it with _(). Then in the locale directory:

make libbout.pot

will update the template file libbout.pot under BOUT_TOP/locale. The template file should not be edited, but is used to generate language-specific files (libbout.po). To update these language files see the next section.

Adding translations

Adding support for a new language, or improving the translations in the existing files can be done by:

1. Going to the locale BOUT++ subdirectory and running:

   make locale-ll
   

   where ll is the language code e.g. make locale-zh_TW or make locale-de. This will create a file libbout.po under a locale/ll subdirectory.

2. Edit the locale/ll/libbout.po file. Edit the .po file in de subdirectory (not the .pot file!), adding the translations. Each msgid entry should have a translated msgstr entry. If you don’t want to translate them all, just delete the ones you don’t translate. Any missing will just revert to the version in the code. If you’re adding UTF-8 characters, change the content line in the .po file to have charset=UTF-8.

3. In the locale directory run make. This should output something like:

   Building language:  fr
   Building language:  zh_CN
   Building language:  zh_TW
   

The new language should now be available (no need to recompile BOUT++).